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    Pearl Harbor 1941: The day of infamy
    Pearl Harbor 1941: The day of infamy
    Pearl Harbor 1941: The day of infamy
    Ebook232 pages1 hour

    Pearl Harbor 1941: The day of infamy

    By Carl Smith and Jim Laurier

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    About this ebook

    A revised edition of this highly illustrated account of the day, Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, that would "live in infamy".

    December 7, 1941 was one of the single most decisive days of World War II - the day that brought the USA into the fight. Six Japanese aircraft carriers disgorged their full complements in two waves on the superior US Pacific Fleet as it lay slumbering in Pearl Harbor. Depending on opposing viewpoints, the attack was either a brilliant maneuver of audacious strategy, or a piece of unparalleled villainy and deception by a supposedly friendly power.

    This revised edition, containing the latest research on the events of December 7, 1941, reveals several previously unknown aspects of the attack and dispels key myths that have been built up around the fateful day.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateOct 20, 2012
    ISBN9781782005001
    Pearl Harbor 1941: The day of infamy
    Author

    Carl Smith

    Carl Smith has had a life long fascination with many aspects of the military history of the United States. A specialist writer of many years experience, Carl has worked for several popular military magazines, and has written several volumes on the key battles of the Civil War in the Osprey Campaign series. Carl lives and works in Virginia.

    Read more from Carl Smith

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      Book preview

      Pearl Harbor 1941 - Carl Smith

      attack.

      INTRODUCTION

      Below, thick fluffy clouds blanketed the blue sky. Shoving the stick forward, Lt. Mitsuo Matsuzaki dropped his Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 (Kate – American forces used call names for quick identification) AI-301 beneath them into more blue sky, the horizon broken by the low verdant land mass he was approaching. His observer, Cmdr Mitsuo Fuchida, the mission commander, was watchful. Hawaii looked green and oddly peaceful. He scanned the horizon. It looked too good to be true; other than his fliers, no planes were visible. Fuchida remembered, years later, how peaceful it had appeared.

      Bored servicemen in Hawaii were always vocal about living conditions or carping about food and barracks life. A Soldier’s Prayer was circulated at Hawaiian military installations just prior to the attack. After December 7, boredom was forgotten.

      It was 0730 hrs Hawaii time; the date, December 7, 1941. Fuchida’s destination was the home of the US Pacific Fleet – Pearl Harbor. The fleet and three aircraft carriers berthed there were the key targets. A statement notifying the US that war had been declared had been scheduled for delivery to Washington an hour earlier. This air strike would be the first act of war between Imperial Japan and the United States.

      All the planning, endless exercises, and practice runs would determine the success of this attack. Some military minds thought it would cripple the US fleet; others hoped it might scare the Americans into appeasement; but most felt it would pull Japan into a war with the United States. If war was to be the outcome, some had said, then let it begin here, because Japan’s best hope for winning a conflict with the Western giant was to strike first and cripple the US Navy. Japanese forces could then act with a free hand in the following months and further expand their conquests. For Cmdr Fuchida much of this was immaterial, for he was a career officer with a mission: bomb Pearl Harbor.

      Political background

      The Hawaiian Islands lie in the middle of the Pacific, west-south-west of the United States, the first real landfall west of the mainland, positioned at 150°–170° longitude (just east of the International Date Line) and between 18° and 29° north of the equator. Kauai, Niihau, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, and Hawaii form the major islands in the chain, originally called the Sandwich Islands. The northernmost edge is at roughly the same latitude as Los Angeles, giving the Hawaiian Islands a uniform, mild annual temperature of 75° Fahrenheit and a tropical climate, with cooling ocean breezes, rainforests, and dramatic stretches of beach at the foot of majestic mountains and volcanoes. These islands, between Japan and the United States, are a perfect military base, first for naval attack and then for air power.

      Hawaii had been discovered by Europeans in the mid-1700s. First ruled by a monarchy, in 1900 it became a US territory, but it was not made a state until 1959. The land is fertile and the beaches, when properly cultivated, yield immense crops of American, Japanese and international tourists. By the 1930s, the population of Hawaii was mostly American and Asian, with its indigenous peoples waning.

      Pearl Harbor was the first stopping point in Pacific waters. Because air power attack was theoretical, Pearl’s fortifications relied heavily on coastal guns in heavy positions to defend against naval bombardment.

      Despite the war in Europe, in 1941 the US Army was not ready to fight a modern war. Although in 1936-issue field gear, these soldiers on maneuvers would look at home in French trenches a quarter of a century earlier. Note the cloth puttees, campaign hats and gas masks reminiscent of World War I.

      Japan noted the islands as a potential threat to expansion. Since before the Russo-Japanese War, Japan had been full-steam-ahead modernizing, manufacturing and upgrading its military. With these changes came increased demand for natural resources (steel, oil, gas, raw materials and minerals) and their eyes turned east to China, Indochina, and the islands of the Pacific. Although Russia had traditionally been viewed as the major threat to Japanese expansion and Asian influence, the American and European presence in Asia became increasingly important.

      The Japanese felt European powers were limiting growth of their empire: as Japan expanded, European resistance coalesced which in turn supported Japanese fears of intervention and limitation. The US Congress placed restrictions on business with Japan, and then the majority of the US Pacific Fleet made Pearl Harbor its home. Real or imagined, the US fleet posed a threat, and Japan viewed Hawaii with special interest.

      The situation worsened as Japan felt strangled and besieged. When war erupted in Europe, and the United States did not intervene as France and Britain became embroiled in conflict with Germany and Italy, Japan noticed. America, it seemed, wanted neutrality: perhaps they would overlook expansions in Asia.

      Europeans might have to fight wars on two fronts, but obviously Europe would be their primary theater and the Pacific would occupy a back seat. The US Pacific Fleet was a deterrent. Japanese and American spheres of influence grew, stretching thinner, threatening to burst. Japan and the United States moved on a collision course: the former needed to grow, the latter wanted to maintain the status quo. Relations worsened, and nationalistic distrust blossomed.

      On December 7, 1941, at 0750 hrs, the situation exploded. Within hours, the United States was no longer neutral.

      OPPOSING COMMANDERS

      Admiral Husband E. Kimmel

      Admiral Husband (Hubby) E. Kimmel (1882–1968) was the naval commander at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Born in Henderson, Kentucky, the son of an army major, he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1904. In February, 1941, he was promoted over 32 other officers to Commander in Chief Pacific (CinCPAC), becoming the navy’s senior admiral. Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in Washington, had every confidence in Kimmel’s abilities.

      As CinCPAC, Kimmel moved to Pearl Harbor, home of the Pacific Fleet. General George C. Marshall advised Lt. General Walter C. Short that Kimmel was reasonable and responded well to plain speaking. Kimmel was unhappy with the defense arrangements in Hawaii and at Pearl Harbor. Responsibility for them was split: the army was responsible for land and air defense; the navy for the Navy Yard itself. The navy was responsible for reconnaissance but the army controlled the radar stations and both air and shore defenses in case of invasion. Kimmel let his strong feelings about the tangled web of responsibilities be known.

      The US military was understrength and complacent, behind in naval air power and Army Air Corps aircraft, and still thinking of the last war. Weapons, ammunition, and manpower were available, but the overriding mentality was that supplies were to be preserved rather than consumed. Kimmel complained to Washington about inequities.

      Without supplies and material, service personnel could not do an adequate job. On top of this, the army and navy competed for allocations, and each had its own turf to protect. There was no open rivalry, but clearly the army did not wish to step on the navy’s toes and vice-versa, so Kimmel and Short cooperated; but within that inter-service co-operation there was competition and a general lack of sharing any overlapping information. Kimmel was friendly with Short, but each man ran his own show.

      Kimmel resented the US policy of building up the Atlantic Fleet at the expense of the Pacific Fleet. The US Navy was a deterrent, but transferring ships and men from the Pacific to the Atlantic affected more than his command – it affected the security of the United States. Still, he was a career officer, and having stated his objections, he followed orders.

      Admiral Kimmel (center) and two members of his staff, his operations officer, Cpt. Delaney (left), and his assistant chief of staff, Cpt. Smith (right). Although aggressive and vigilant, Kimmel shared responsibility for Pearl Harbor with Lt. Gen. Short. Both were surprised by the audacious Japanese thrust at an island almost everyone thought too well defended to be a target.

      American artillery units on Oahu regularly deployed for field maneuvers and war games. Although a strong fortress, many felt the real threat to Oahu was naval bombardment followed by invasion, rather than air attack.

      Following the events at Pearl Harbor, eight separate investigations of the attack were carried out. Kimmel retired in March, 1942, but went to work as a consultant for a government contractor on secret naval projects. The

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